IT IS precisely such changes in the military alliances surrounding it that China fears.

Having US forces based in South Korea and Japan and the US Pacific fleet sailing the high seas is one thing.

Having Japan, South Korea, and possibly Taiwan, incorporated in a high-tech US-led missile defence system is quite another.

If the system pans out in precisely the way its planners envisage, the existing bilateral alliances the US has with various countries in the region may implicitly turn into a multilateral defensive framework led by the US.

NMD WILL NOT LEAD TO A REGIONAL ASIAN ARMS RACE

BAKER SPRING, Research Fellow The Heritage Foundation, July 13, 2000 MYTHS ABOUT MISSILE DEFENSE AND THE ARMS RACE No. 1385

Myth #5: The expansion and modernization of China's strategic nuclear forces will have a domino effect in the Asia-Pacific region.

Reality: An arms race in Asia has everything to do with regional rivalries and nothing to do with the deployment of an NMD by the United States.

An unofficial description of India's nuclear weapons doctrine states that it is based on a policy of "credible minimum nuclear deterrence" for retaliating against a nuclear attack on India.

16 Although the survivability of this retaliatory force is considered very important and based on the need to maintain redundant, mobile, dispersed, and hidden nuclear forces, the policy decision is not based on matching the nuclear forces of another country in numerical terms. Ironically, India may have adopted China's policy during the Cold War, when its minimal strategic nuclear deterrent force--far smaller than the U.S. and Soviet forces--was adequate for its own security and for maintaining a global balance of power. 17 The Indians are more likely to focus on the larger number of intermediate-range missiles that China is procuring, which could threaten most of India's territory, rather than the new generations of China's ICBMs that could threaten U.S. territory.